malina in the show they went so fucking hard and it was the best decision they could ever make. They said we gonna give you best friends to lovers supremacy if it’s THE LAST THING WE EVER DO. They way they transferred Mal and Alina’s friendships from the books to the show was phenomenal- they removed the bits of Mal where he was being a twat and made him an effortlessly in love himbo who literally crawled across Ravka and would die several times for her and didn’t judge her at all for the choices she made. I’m crying at the thought of how perfect Jessie and Archie were to play them- they captured their characterisation perfectly and their relationship was the sweetest fucking thing ever. Their childhood flashbacks gave me so much fucking serotonin and I’m on a high from it. I will say- some of the directorial choices of having random flashbacks consistently with weird slideshow esque effects I was not a fan of.

The most important part of the Shadow and Bone trailer is Mal running after Alina getting taken away and yelling her name. The second most important part is Alina screaming before Mal is attacked and lighting the Fold up. The third most important part—

mal cutting his palm while defending alina and getting a scar that matches hers being followed up by mal’s voiceover saying “alina, if you get this letter, know that when i told you about true north, i was talking about you. you are my true north and i can see my way to you now” lining up with the exact moment genya erases alina’s palm scar—her mal scar—is my 13th reason 

can't believe i need to clear this up but the darkling asking mal what alina's favourite flowers are and then giving them to her was not cute. it was not meant to be cute. it was a very deliberate display of how he was manipulating both alina and mal for his own benefit. if he truly cared about alina, he would've told her mal was there, or he would've asked her himself. he wouldn't be pursuing her in the first place. it's not romance, it's grooming.

it should’ve been sinclair